Lucas opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the dim purple light filtering through the cracks in the ruin.
He didn't know how long he'd been asleep—if what he'd done could even be called sleeping. Everything felt hazy. Disjointed. Like his brain had only half-booted back into reality.
But this time, he was awake.
Truly awake.
His body ached. Not the sharp, stabbing kind of pain—this was deeper. Achy, dull, lingering in his bones like a sickness that hadn't fully taken root.
He tried to sit up. Muscles protested, but they obeyed.
He was still wrapped in the thin layer of black sand he'd piled over himself. Most of it had scattered during the night, leaving cold patches across his skin.
He groaned and pushed himself upright, back pressing against the stone wall. His breath was shaky.
'Still alive.'
Again.
But something felt… different.
He placed a hand on his chest.
There.
A warmth.
Faint, but unmistakable. A slow, rhythmic pulse, as if something beneath his sternum was beating in time with his heart—but not quite. A separate rhythm. A second pulse.
His fingers trembled slightly as he pulled them away.
'What the hell is this?'
He looked down at himself. Still dirty. Still bruised. Cuts and scrapes on his arms, chest, legs. Still weak. Still naked.
But not the same.
Something had changed.
And it was moving inside him.
Lucas rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and winced. His fingers felt stiff. Dry. When he opened them again, he saw flecks of red across his knuckles—dried blood, maybe from his cracked lips… or maybe from that damn drink.
He crawled toward the entrance of the ruin and peeked outside.
Still night.
The same eternal sky of violet and black, with that massive moon glaring down like a silent judge. The dunes stretched endlessly in every direction, quiet and cold. But there—just beyond the edge of the ruin—he noticed something.
Tracks.
Wide, deep grooves in the sand. A dozen of them. Heavy. Slow.
Not human.
He narrowed his eyes.
'It was here.'
The big one.
The scorpion.
Or something worse.
He scanned the horizon again. No movement. Just sand and shadow.
Lucas sat back down and took a deep breath.
His body was still wrecked. He could feel every scrape and bruise like little fires under his skin. His mouth tasted like rust, thick and bitter. He spat on the ground, watched the red-tinted saliva hit the stone, and frowned.
That damn liquid…
He touched his tongue with two fingers—still rough. Still warm. His gums tingled slightly, like they were healing too fast. Not normal.
Not human.
'What the hell did I put in my body?'
It wasn't water. It wasn't medicine.
And yet… he was alive.
More than that, his head felt clearer than it had in days. His thoughts moved like sharpened glass—sharp, fast, focused. And that strange warmth in his chest hadn't gone away.
If anything, it was stronger now.
He wasn't sure what that meant.
But whatever it was…
It was waking up.
He sat in silence for a while.
Staring.
Thinking.
The ruin had served its purpose. It saved his life. Barely. But staying here meant nothing. No food. No shelter worth the name. And sooner or later, that monster—or something worse—would come back.
He turned his gaze toward the horizon.
And there it was.
The structure.
Still towering in the distance like a jagged black tooth against the violet sky. Its shape was clearer now—tall, sharp, broken in places. Something between a fortress and a cathedral, twisted by time or worse.
It called to him.
Not with words. Not with feelings. But with presence.
That place had weight. Like it mattered. Like it was watching him just as he was watching it.
He didn't know why.
He didn't know what was waiting for him there.
But it was the only damn thing in this world that felt like a direction.
Maybe there were people.
Maybe there were answers.
Maybe there was a way home.
Lucas clenched his jaw.
'Or maybe it's where I die.'
Either way, he had to go.
He stood slowly, legs shaky but holding.
His body still hurt, but it moved. That was enough.
He scanned the ruin one last time. In a dark corner near the wall, he spotted a splintered chunk of stone—sharp-edged, heavy enough to hurt something if he had to.
He picked it up.
Not a weapon. Not really.
But it would have to do.
He took one step out of the ruin.
The cold bit into him immediately.
He stepped again.
And again.
And he walked.
The sand shifted under his feet, cold and coarse, sticking to his skin as he moved away from the ruin.
One step. Then another.
No sounds but the soft crunch beneath him and the distant breath of the wind.
But after a dozen paces, he felt something.
A pull. A weight.
Not on his body—on the world itself.
Like the air had thickened. Like the ground had taken notice.
Lucas stopped.
His grip tightened on the shard of stone in his hand.
He turned slowly, scanning the dunes.
Nothing.
But the sky felt darker.
The wind… quieter.
Then, for a single second, the warmth in his chest pulsed harder. Like a drumbeat answering another.
He stared at the black moon above him.
It hadn't moved.
But it felt closer.
The sensation passed. Faded.
Lucas swallowed, dry and slow, then kept walking—eyes forward, steps steady.
He didn't know what had just noticed him.
But something had.